Corruption of the Mind
by watashi wa ichi desu
Summary: There is good reason books on the Dark Arts are kept locked away at the Ministry, or hidden within Hogwarts. The things they cause are too horrible a price to pay for what one would gain if they read them. Dark!Harry.


**Title: **Corruption of the Mind

**Author:** Watashi Wa Ichi Desu

**Rating:** T(PG-13)

**Summary:** There is good reason books on the Dark Arts are kept locked away at the Ministry, or hidden within Hogwarts. The things they cause are too horrible a price to pay for what one would gain if they read them. Dark!Harry.

**Disclaimer: **Harry Potter is owned by J.K. Rowling.

**Author's Notes:** Although this story isn't the longest, or the first piece of Harry Potter fanfiction I have wrote, I cosider it my biggest acomplishment to date. I hope everyone enjoys it. Constructive criticism is greatly welcomed, but I won't say no to praise either. Keep in mind that Harry is suppose to be out of character, as that is the entire point of the fic, to show the evil efects of dark magic.

* * *

Anyone looking to extensively research Dark Magic needs to obtain a hand written permission form from the Ministry of Magic and have it signed by at least two thirds of the Wizengamot and the current Minister of Magic before being allowed to even look at the books, scrolls, and memories the Ministry keeps in the Department of Mysteries pertaining to the subject. 

Most citizens of the wizarding world see this as overkill, because in their eyes no one would want to research the Dark Arts extensively anyway, and those that do have no place in common society. The idea of research for betterment of theory, or simple understanding, completely alludes most of them, and the phrase 'fight fire with fire' is lost as well.

There are a destined few that have gained access to the records, but only one in recent history has gone on to actually share his knowledge. The rest haven't been so keen to talk of their experience. There is one common trait between them all, and that is their change in personality. On some it was so slight it was hardly noticeable, but on others it stuck out to anyone who had known them before.

This change has been studied at length by some of the greatest Unspeakables the Department of Mysteries has ever seen. Much of their findings is classified Ministry information that has not yet been made available to the public, but what has leaked through makes it plain as day that Dark Magic is highly addictive.

It works in much the same way as muggle drugs. Every time a spell is preformed the caster experiences a wild feeling of accomplishment, happiness, and sick pleasure accompanied by the urge to feel it again. This urge is caused by a brief tainting of the magical core when the spell is preformed. It leaves a residue behind that is built upon every time a new spell is cast.

Over time the magical core blackens and decays, becoming more corrupt with use. Soon it loses its ability to properly channel magic and the spells preformed by the caster become erratic. With this also comes spikes of ill temper, aggressiveness, and violence along with a desire for more power. It is theorized that this is due to the failure of the magical core and the loss of properly channeled magic.

Someone who's magical core has been completely corrupted has no more feeling of right and wrong. The only thought the caster is left with is a mad desire for more power. Anything that use to matter in the person's life isn't of importance at best, and at worst is forgotten altogether. A man will literally kill his own wife and children to gain more power.

All of this is common knowledge to those that know where to look and desire the information. Yet wizards still attempt to use the Dark Arts and not be overcome by them. In most cases people can be pulled away from the magic before it leaves too many permanent scars, but in some, that is not the case.

Harry Potter got his first taste of Dark Magic only days after his seventeenth birthday. He was back at Hogwarts after spending the first month of holidays with the Dursleys as he was expected to. For a month he had been locked away while war raged in the wizarding world. The only thing he could think of was the hunt for the horcruxs and how he would be able to destroy Voldemort.

What he needed was information, and although Hermione had been thumbing through everything she could get her hands on, she had yet to find anything useful.

The restricted section of the library loomed up before him and seemed to call out to him. It was early evening and he probably had about an hour until Ron and Hermione would expect him for dinner. There was no librarian in the summer to tell him where and where not to go, and he was seventeen, a legal adult. What right did anyone have to tell him what to do?

It was so tempting, and Harry had never been known for his ability to keep his nose out of where it didn't belong. He slipped over the velvet rope strung across the entrance and began to glide noiselessly through the tall shelves of ancient books. Just as they had in first year the books seemed to whisper to him as he stared at them, but he was no longer a child and mere books weren't going to frighten him.

Everything seemed to hold some promise, and he was at a loss of where to start looking. After what seemed ages with only the murmurings of the books to guide him his fingers caught upon a thick black and silver tome where they had been tracing across the shelves.

He slipped the book out of the shelf with relative ease, and blew the dust off of the cover. There was no title printed on it, only a series of symbols he did not recognize. As he clutched it between his hands he could feel the power emanating from it like some dark beast waiting to strike on any weak powerless fools to make the mistake of thinking they were good enough to read its contents.

It was a daunting thought that mere words printed on paper could inspire these feelings from him. Some part of him wanted to run away from it all and go about things the _right _way, but there was also the feelings of _what if_, what if the answer lay in the Dark Arts the entire time and they never stumbled upon it?

Wasn't there a phrase, _know thine enemy? _He cradled the book against his chest and walked quickly and cautiously out of the library. His choice was made.

The walk back to Gryffindor tower seemed twice as long, and it felt as though everything was watching him from the shadows. He gave the password in a fit of frenzied nervousness, and he was immensely thankful that his friends weren't there when he returned. He may have convinced his own mind that there was no shame in his actions, but he did not want his friends to know, regardless.

When he got to his bed in the dormitory he quickly drew the curtains and lit the enclosed space by magic so he would not be disturbed. The book was thrown down next to him, and he stared at its mysterious cover and deliberated.

He had to win the war, and that meant doing things he would never consider otherwise. Nothing bad would happen, he wouldn't be overcome, as long as he was careful. His hand reached out and picked up the book, letting it fall open to the first page. He was sucked in as soon as his eyes met the first word and all thoughts of care and caution were pushed from his mind. All he knew was the forbidden.

* * *

"Harry, mate? You up there?" 

It was like awakening from a dream. Harry's eyes tore from the book, and he threw it away from himself in fear. It bounced against the curtain and fell with a thunk to rest under the bed.

"Harry!"

It was Ron's voice. Ron was calling him. It was probably dinner, and he and Hermione were waiting so they could go down together.

His breathing quickened at the thought of them. _What had he done? _There were spells rushing through his mind, spells that he should have never learned, and all of them were waiting, begging to be released, at the tip of his fingers.

They itched, his whole body itched, with the desire to preform the magic he had read. It would be so simple, too. He knew he could do it. The thought made his throat burn with shame.

"Harry?"

Hermione's voice. What would she say? What would they do to him? He fought the guilt back, shoved the curtains away from his bed, and stood on shaking legs.

The flight of stairs looked back dauntingly as he stared down to the turn at the bottom. How could he face them after he had done? He fingers still itched, and the spells still leaked through his mind like poison.

He ran down the stairs and just managed to slow his pace before rounding the corner and coming face to face with them.

Ron and Hermione, his best friends, they looked so innocent. Unmarked, unscarred, so perfect - they had it all, didn't they? They didn't know pain like he did. They didn't know anything.

"We were calling for ages," Hermione scolded him.

A fake smile was forced to his face. "Must have dosed off. Time for dinner?"

He shouldn't be allowed in their presence. He was flawed, more flawed even than he had been before. _Tainted by evil_.

"You're working too hard," Hermione continued as the three of them walked towards the portrait hole.

Ron chuckled, but Harry could see the worry in his eyes, "You can't very well kill You-Kn-Vol-Voldemort, if you drop dead from exhaustion."

Hermione elbowed him and hissed that he was being inconsiderate again, but Harry felt detached from their antics. He didn't belong anymore.

The guilt stayed with him all through dinner, but Ron's antics and Hermione's angry snips helped him to relax and forget his early actions. By the time they were back in the common room that evening it had faded back to just a vague sensation of guilt at keeping something from his friends.

"Harry?" Ron waved a hand in front of his face and grinned when Harry gave a start, "Though we lost you for a minute."

"Sorry," he said. _What was he apologizing for, really?_ " I'm just tired."

"Are you sure you're okay. You seemed a bit distracted all night," Hermione asked in a worried, inquisitive tone.

Harry glared. She had no right to question him. Neither of them did.

"I'm fine," he snapped.

She looked a bit hurt, not to mention taken aback, by his harsh reply. "I'm just worried," she began softly.

"You don't need to worry," he cut her off, "I said I'm okay."

"There's no need to go off on her, mate, we're all worried lately," Ron's voice, tinged with anger on Hermione's behalf, snapped him out of it.

"You're right. I'm just a bit knackered, okay?" he said, "I think I'll go to bed."

He didn't stop to see them exchange glances as he hurried up to bed. It felt as if a war was raging in his head, and now he wasn't sure which side he was on.

* * *

As he lay in bed with the curtains shut around him and his whole world in darkness, Harry began to realize the full impact of his thoughts and actions ever since he had read that book. He was tainted by the magic he read. That was why his fingers itched with the desire to preform magic, and why he could not think of his friends without anger or contempt. 

There was no matter of care when it came to Dark Magic. Even the most cautious were changed from their findings, and Harry couldn't say he was a master of Occulmency. He could not block his thoughts from the ones invading him like a disease.

Now that he had been tainted, touched by the magic's corruptive nature, he wasn't sure he even wanted the thoughts out of his head. They seemed so natural now, like they had belonged there since the day of his birth. What could they hurt him? All he needed to do was remember not to snap in front of his friends.

No one needed to know what he had done. No one needed to know that it had affected him in any way. He would still be their perfect Savior, and they would see him as such.

He rolled over and tried to sleep, only to find that he could not. He laid awake as the darkness of the night pressed in around him. Suddenly the faint hum of powerful magic started up around him, and he remembered that the book was not yet out of his life.

A few hastened minutes of groping in the dark, and he had retrieved the book from under his bed. How could he get rid of it? He could get up and rush it back to the library, and no one would be any wiser. He pulled out his wand and set a lighting charm so that he could see.

It was only when he was met with the actual sight of the book that he realized he didn't want to give it up. His conscious was screaming that he had to, but some deeper, twisted instinct in his mind whispered to him that there would be no harm in keeping it. Reading one more page couldn't hurt.

He opened the book. He would read one page and then he would get rid of it. Just one more page...

One page soon turned to one chapter, and after that he forget he was putting any sort of limit on himself and just dived into the dark world without a care for consequences.

* * *

He had to stop reading. It was morning, and Ron would wake up soon and demand they go to breakfast. Hermione would want them in the library searching for relevant information among scribbled bits of idiocy. 

She didn't know anything. All her professed knowledge, hah! The only useful information the library carried was in the restricted section, but then, they were too _good _to take that path.

He closed the book with force and hid it again underneath his bed, ignoring the nagging feeling that called him back to it, and slipped out of bed as quietly as he could.

The itching in his fingers was harder to resist than it had been the day before. He showered and dressed quickly and shook off the urge to read just a bit more before Ron awoke.

There was none of the heart wrenching guilt, only the heavily veiled sense of shame and remorse that was easy to bury beneath all of the things he had learned.

He was just reading. Hadn't Hermione always complained he didn't read enough? _Yes, but not this. _As long as he didn't use the spells, what was the problem? _There was no bad knowledge_. No, none at all.

There was a cheery fire in the common room already. Hogwarts was the only place that could pull that off in summer. Hermione was already sitting in one of the armchairs, reviewing notes she had made previously.

"Morning Hermione," he greeted her with a smile, _fake smile - he didn't really care_.

She looked up at him and seemed to search his face. There was a fleeting look of something in her eyes, but she let it pass. "Good morning, Harry, sleep well?"

"Fine," he lied, "I'm sorry about being such a git yesterday. It's just this whole thing with Voldemort and the war, it gets to me."

Play the tragic hero and the fans will eat it up. How many issues of the Daily Prophet had sold?

She smiled, and he knew the ruse had worked. _Of course it worked. _"It will all work out, Harry, I know it will."

She doesn't know anything. He smiled gratefully just as Ron lumbered down the stairs, his hair still mussed from sleep, and provided the perfect distraction.

* * *

They spent the day in the library just as Harry knew they would. Hermione hovered over them worse than Madam Pince ever did and accused Ron of not taking notes properly. 

"I'm sick of all this reading, Hermione!" he yelled in frustration, and Harry watched as disaster brewed and struck. "When will there be any action?"

"Action?" Hermione said in a voice that was barely above a shriek, "We barely made it through the last battle! We don't know nearly enough to take on the Death Eaters!"

"We're not dead yet are we?" Ron yelled back. _How stupid of him._

Hermione's face flushed with anger. "I won't have you rushing out without a plan and getting killed!"

"What if I don't get killed? We're wasting time with all this - none of the information we need is the kind that can be found in books," Ron snarled, "just face fact Hermione!"

"I don't want you to die," Hermione's anger reached new heights and her eyes began to tear, "Dammit, don't you get that!"

"It's a chance we're all taking in this!" Ron yelled before Hermione completely dissolved into tears and was suddenly hugging the life out of him, crying into his shoulder.

It was so easy to play with their emotions, Harry observed as he looked on with a face of faked concern. The war was straining on their every nerve, making them shatter and quickly lose faith.

How hadn't he seen this all before? It was so obvious. _He didn't know where to look. _

_

* * *

_

After a while he stopped spending him time with Ron and Hermione, and instead he gave them the slip as soon as possible to retreat into the restricted section to find more books to feed his growing obsession. There was every sort of spell, he had found, and so many different ways to use them to his advantage.

He was beginning to bore of the books more and more easily now, though. He craved something more, the power that the books said would come when he began to practice the spells. The itch in his fingers became an ache and now it was at the point where he could not pick up his wand without desiring to preform Dark Magic.

At night he would curl his fisted hands into his sheets and bite back screams of frustration at the sheer idiocy of everything and everyone.

There was no pleasure it anything now. His friends were like flies, always there to annoy him at the worst of times. He snapped at them without meaning to; without even knowing what he said. When Hermione cornered him and tried to talk to him he screamed at her to leave him alone, and he had dig his nails into his palms to stop from calling her _mudblood_.

She had left him with tears running down her cheeks and mixed fear in her eyes. She was on to him. She knew his secret. There were so many ways to silence her if he just gave in and used the spells he had learned. _What was knowledge if he did not use it? _There were so many things that were in his power to do.

They would all fear him. No one would push him around anymore. He certainly wouldn't be their Savior. Voldemort wasn't a problem. He didn't matter. So what if the muggles were enslaved and muggle-borns slaughtered? Muggles like his filthy relatives? Hah! They deserved it.

They had magic and the muggles didn't. _They were better, more powerful, higher. _Muggles were just simple creatures that paled with fright at the sight of something being levitated.

At times he doubted this. There were faint glimpses where he would remember how he had felt before. _This was wrong._ What he was doing was awful. He had let himself be overcome. _No, he'd changed for the better, he had to accept that. _

_

* * *

_

He was ambushed in his sleep. He woke to find himself pinned to his bed by Ron with Hermione standing in front of him with her wand raised, shaking, in front of her.

"What the hell are you doing?" he screamed, "Get off me, you stupid idiot!"

"This is for your own good, Harry," she said, near tears again. _Stupid mudblood. _"Please forgive me."

"Stupefy!"

The world went dark.

* * *

He came to in a plain room with only the bare necessities he would need to live. When he tried the door he found that he had been locked in. 

They had trapped him like some filthy animal. _Something for passerby to gawk at - The Boy-Who-Lived, their Savior. _His wand was gone. _Filthy blood-traitors, how dare they treat him like this. _

All the things he could do, and they lock him up. He had done so much for them already; didn't they want him to save them too? Those ungrateful bastards.

He wanted his books and his wand. He would show them of their mistakes. He would never, ever forgive.

They were his best friends. Oh yes, some friends indeed that lock one of their number up like some dangerous beast.

He pounded on the door again and when it did not budge and no one answered he began to scream.

They must have put up silencing charms, _bastards_, so they could ignore him in peace. Probably having a right good time. _Was this what would happen if he lived through the final battle. _

He screamed until his throat was raw.

"You bastards! Fucking bastards! Filthy mudbloods and blood-traitors!"

He kicked and dragged his nails across the door, pounding on it over and over, but it would not give. Maybe they were standing on the other side, maybe they could hear his insults. He hoped they could.

"Is this how you treat your friends! I HATE YOU! I HATE YOU ALL!"

Food was delivered by a timid looking house-elf, and he threw the tray against the wall in anger. "Get out of my sight you wretched creature!" he yelled at the thing in disgust. "How dare you come near me!"

Days passed in much the same way. He missed his magic, he missed his books. _The knowledge, the excitement. _His fingers ached, his throat ached, and he hated everything.

When the house-elf returned the next time he tried to strangle it. He wanted to hear the sound of its neck break and pretend it belonged to his friends.

"The cruciatus curse was developed during the height of the eighteenth century witch hunts as a way to torture muggles for their crimes against wizard kind..." he recited as he systematically shredded the sheets on his bed with his bare hands.

The next time the house-elf appeared he grabbed it by the wrist and informed it that he would boil its blood until it leaked out of its overly large ears the second he was released. He laughed. "Take that Hermione, take that you know-it-all mudblood!"

"You're watching me, I know you're watching me," he said to the empty room, "very clever you stupid bastards."

He didn't eat the food that was provided for him. He picked it apart into the smallest pieces he could and declared that he knew they were drugging it.

A long time passed before it hit him that they were never going to let him out. He would be stuck there forever. He began screaming again and broke everything he could.

* * *

Listlessness followed his tantrums, and he began to remember. Late at night guilt began to gnaw at him, and it seemed that every moment from the past months was replayed at him, only this time he realized exactly what he was saying. 

Tears came hot and wet to his eyes and ran down his cheeks in droves. _He shouldn't listen. No remorse. They had to be drugging him. _

Had he really done all those awful things?

He sobbed himself to sleep and didn't wake up for a long time.

The house-elf arrived with breakfast and he just stared at it until it left him alone. He was a horrible person; he had allowed himself to be overcome by darkness, and he was tainted for life.

He was sorry. All he knew now was remorse; the one thing he hadn't held all those months spent in darkness. He traced the nail marks on the door where he had tried to claw his way out.

He deserved to be locked up there. He deserved death. Why wouldn't anyone come in there and kill him?

"I'm sorry," he whispered, "So sorry. Kill me."

No one answered. He felt anger bubble in his chest. "I said KILL ME!" he screamed.

The silence mocked him.

They were never letting him out.


End file.
